TBWA\Chiat\Day worked with director Lance Acord on Travelers first brand campaign since 2015

Insurance might not be the first category you think of for emotional storytelling.

Insurance advertising tends to trade in absurdist humor (see: Geico) rather than dramatic attempts to touch on human emotions. It’s more likely to be remembered for tonedeaf misfires than for successfully channeling human emotion. And yet Travelers Insurance does the unexpected in its “Stories of Care” campaign from agency of record TBWA\Chiat\Day New York and Park Pictures director Lance Acord, who also helmed Nike’s “Dream Crazy” and was named to Adweek’s Creative 100.

The cinematic ads take a look at a series of families, each narrative unfolding over a series of years and filled with emotional moments that challenge homeowners and small business owners but ultimately lead to moments of reconciliation. In each case the role of Travelers is implied but never explicitly stated, with the ads instead focusing on the emotional moments that follow.

“Footsteps,” for example, focuses on a family coffee shop and a daughter who always seems to be getting in trouble for drawing rather than helping customers. After a fire, her father finally seems to find an appreciation for her artistic talents.

Another ad focuses on a hardware store passing from one generation to the next, a father who makes a chair for his new son that stays with the family for years and a favorite car sing-along uniting a mother and daughter.

“Today most insurance competitors are using humor to convey their messages, so we decided to go in another direction. Our new Travelers campaign is about the promise of care. We are showing this with authentic and emotional stories to demonstrate that the act of care really matters,” TBWA\Chiat\Day New York executive creative director Walt Connelly told Adweek. “Even though the world we live in does not always show it, care can make a real difference in a person’s life. And that is what Travelers believes at its core.”

The campaign made its debut during the Travelers Championship PGA Golf Tournament June 20-23 and will continue to air nationally on broadcast through the end of 2019, as well as across social media channels.